Dec. 7 (Bloomberg) -- The United Nations takes “very
seriously” a French epidemiologist’s report saying a cholera
outbreak that has killed more than 1,800 people in Haiti began
at a camp for Nepalese peacekeepers, a UN spokesman said.

The UN is “neither accepting or dismissing” the report,
UN spokesman Martin Nesirky said in New York. “This needs to be
looked into further.”

Renaud Piarroux concluded after a study in Haiti last month
that the epidemic began with an imported strain of the disease
and broke out at the Nepalese base, Agence France-Presse
reported, citing an unidentified French Foreign Ministry
official.

Nesirky said Piarroux’s report was “one of many” the UN
is assessing and that there is no “conclusive evidence” on the
origin of the outbreak.

The UN has conducted its own tests of the peacekeepers’
camp and commissioned others, all of which have so far proved
negative, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told the General
Assembly on Dec. 3. He said 81,000 people have been infected and
that cholera may strike up to 650,000 over the next six months.

French Foreign Ministry spokesman Bernard Valero said the
department received a copy of the report and passed it on to the
UN, AFP reported.